NPC's Binion's Reopening Maxi-Mini-Trip Report

by Nick Christenson
npc@jetcafe.org
April 2, 2004

After work, I notice the odd occurrence of drops of water falling from the sky as I head to my car. It's not much (the rain that is), even by Las Vegas standards, but it's disconcerting, especially in this part of the world. It's April 1, and I'm off to meet up with friends to experience the reopening of Binion's Horseshoe, or the Horseshoe, or whatever they'll be calling it for the time being. The grand reopening party allegedly started at 4:00, including cake, champagne, speeches by casino executives, and an appearance from the World's Giddiest Mayor. I was busy at that time, and even if I wasn't, I would have found something else compelling to do.

Deciding not to brave the teeming hordes we expected to file into the improved Horseshoe's eating establishments, I met up with friend and fellow BARGEr, "Las Vegas Legend" Frank Castagna, and his trusty side-kick, "Scout" at Main St. Station's 777 Brewery for a fine (as always) meal. Afterwards, we made our way down to the 'Shoe. The intermittent drip-drip of rain had made its way downtown, but it wasn't enough to even be a nuisance. I made sure I had my trusty digital camera handy, just in case we encounter one of those perfect SanDisk moments.

We entered through the valet parking entrance on the NW corner, although it appeared that they were not yet parking cars from this location. Inside, our first impressions were of the BARGE area, or WSOP area, or old poker room location, or slot tournament area, or two-stepping floor, or however you know the NW corner of the casino, right across from the registration desk. It was filled with poker tables, all with new felt (and, I'm guessing, new padding under the felt) ready for the WSOP. A satellite was in progress that had attracted a substantial crowd surrounding that section's one table in action.

They have taken down the inner wall that used to be the old sports book, and, as others have noticed, boxed up the old deli. This has the effect of making the poker room look larger than it once did, although the table count inside the trademark wooden rail seems to me to be the same. The west side snack bar had been renovated, although vestiges of its former self remained. The stools are gone, making me wonder where someone is supposed to sit when they get their food. The menu had also changed, the daily bean special seems to be gone, as is the chili, and they now have a refrigerator case up front from which one can obtain healthy-looking stuff, including various bowls partially filled with lettuce, among other items not so familiar to the snack bar of yore. Somehow, the presence of relatively healthy food items at this sacred place seemed more sacreligious to me than other modifications to that venerable menu.

While it would never be popular as a car freshener scent, the building didn't seem nearly as rank as it was last time I was in it, which was two days before it closed. I expect that's mostly because many fewer people had been smoking in it for the last three months or so. The casino had obviously been carefully cleaned, but let's just say that it was lacking the glitter, polish, and "new casino smell" that comes with a truly new place, but this was looking as clean as I had seen it. There was a change, though, that I found truly disconcerting. I now had to admit that an adjective I thought I'd never use to describe the place was completely appropriate, the casino is now well-lit, especially in the SW corner, between the race book and the slot club. It was an odd experience, and throughout my stay there I felt roughly the same feeling that one gets after staying up all night in a shaded room when someone suddenly opens the drapes once morning arrives.

The race/sports book is not yet open, pending some licensing issues, but the area down in front was occupied by something else I thought I'd never see in the Horseshoe, a bandstand with musical instruments. Live entertainment at the Horseshoe? Isn't this one of the signs of the impending apocalypse?

I stuck my Horseshoe slot club card in a machine, and sure enough, it listed my points total. This was a nice gesture on Harrah's/MTR's part. They didn't have to do this, but they did, and it's appropriate to thank them for it. Heck, I was in there two days before the place closed, I knew the place was at risk, and, like an idiot, I didn't cash out my points. If they had vanished, I certainly would have nobody to blame but myself.

They've taken out a lot of slot machines. As a consequence, the whole place is much less crowded. They've also reduced the number of table games on the east side. They've reduced the size of the pit back by the bar above the coffee shop (in the NE corner), but every table was open and staffed, something I haven't seen at the Horseshoe since, well, I don't know that I've ever seen all the tables open at the Horseshoe.

In statements to the public and press, spokespeople for the new regime have said that they wanted to appeal to the core Binion's customers looking for a good gamble. Except for the fact that the poker room has reopened, I see no other indication that these statements should be believed. I could find no more full-pay video poker, anywhere, and I'm especially saddened to see that the triple play full-pay Double Bonus upright machines are apparently among the devices that are no longer on the floor [1]. Binion's hasn't been much of a mecca for good video poker in years, but now it is truly a grind joint, comparable to most of the strip casinos that cater to the great washed masses. Of course, these folks wouldn't recognize a full-pay machine if one rode up to them on a white horse and hit them in the ass with a banjo, but I wouldn't expect that particular demographic to be enchanted with the Horseshoe.

I took as close a look as I could at the gaming tables, as they were quite packed. Most of the blackjack tables are now 6 deck shoes, with some 2 deck, and a few 1 deck paying 6:5 for a natural. I didn't get a good look at how deeply the games were dealt, but what little I saw didn't impress me. So, while it's not like they've gone to 6:5 for everything, I can honestly say that at this point in time, there is no downtown casino with worse blackjack than the Horseshoe. Not the sort of thing that will impress the old-time Horseshoe regulars.

The same is true at the craps tables. Heck, some of them were ten dollar tables! What is this, the Bellagio? Well, it was opening night, and folks were playing, so who am I to criticize. As others have reported, allowed odds are 3x on points of 4 and 10, 4x on points of 5 and 9, and 5x on points of 6 and 8. Congratulations, Harrah's, you're craps odds are now every bit as good as they are at Caesars, Bally's, or Paris - Las Vegas. I hope your mother is proud.

Seriously, this is anemic. Right now, among downtown casinos, the Main St. Station, Plaza, Golden Nugget, Golden Gate, El Cortez, and Four Queens all offer better odds on their dice games. At least the field bet pays triple on 12, but that's small consolation. On the other hand, I'd like to point out that all the table games have new felt (with the Horseshoe logo), which, I'm sure everyone agrees, more than makes up for the crappy games they deal.

Well, since I'm in this wing of the casino anyway, let's mosey down to the venerable coffee shop, and see what's shaking there. At 8:30 at night, the line is out the door and awkwardly snaking around the floor in a semi-conscious effort to avoid having the line start to work its way up the steps. That seems good for business. Taking a look at the menu, I would have to say it has been radically Harrahs-ified. It has been cut down to two pages, the ribs, chili, and many of the fine specialties of the house are gone. There's still a prime rib deal for $6.95, which is not outrageous, but all the other steak prices are now hovering around the eleven dollar mark. Some late night specials exist, but nothing like Horseshoe customers are used to.

So, let's tally up the scorecard so far:

  1. The full pay video poker is gone.
  2. The blackjack is tied for the worst downtown.
  3. The craps odds have been reduced to be on par with many strip casinos, and is below average for downtown.
  4. The coffee shop has less variety and is more expensive (can't speak to quality, though.)
  5. The deli is gone.
Basically, this place has become the Sahara with a bigger poker room. Plain and simple: The current regime has not kept its word about returning to the sort of place that a veteran gambler would want to bring their action. There are excellent deals downtown for gambling and food. As far as I can tell, this casino has none of them.

Wandering around some more, I can confirm that Gee Joon, the Chinese restaurant upstairs is, indeed closed, as is the buffet area (with the furniture still wrapped up in plastic), and the gift shop is completely empty. I wonder what they did with all the things from the gift shop that are now collector's items? What do casinos usually do with that stuff? When the Aladdin was going to close, I think they just sold it all, but I'm not sure about that. Is there an outlet mall someplace that deals with casino cast-offs? The newsstand downstairs is open for business. You can buy a "Binion's Horseshoe, the Legend Continues" t-shirt there, but it will cost you more than $20. *sigh*

Enough wandering around, we had some poker to play. It was already fairly late for me given that it was a week night, so we just put our names up more-or-less across the board and would play whatever came open first. As it would happen, Scout and I got seats almost immediately in a 2-4 holdem game, while Frankie had to wait for a while before a seat was available for 4-8. Attempts to get Frank to play Omaha8 were resolutely rebuffed.

The tables had all been refinished, and not super cheaply either, the padding under the felt was more substantial than some downtown hotel room bed coverings, and in some cases, perhaps even mattresses. In fact, evidence that systems were new became evident a little later that evening. When it came time to change out the drop box under the table we were playing on, considerable effort was exerted over the course of about a half hour to no avail by several burley people who weren't shy about using metal implements to increase their mechanical advantage. Let's just say that it was a good thing that a spontaneous chip castle building contest had not broken out before 10:00 PM on that table. Finally, the screws were removed that held the drop chute to the table, as of them had penetrated the drop box itself when the new chute was installed. If it were me, I think I would have removed the drop boxes before performing surgery on the tables, but once again, I wasn't consulted.

The first thing I noticed when I sat down in the game was that the median age of the players in the game was probably about half the age of the youngest player in a typical bay-area lowball game. Now, that may be a typical demographic in many places and for many endeavors, but not at the old Horseshoe. Moreover, I would guess that among the 10 players seated at the table there were well over 250 teeth that were original equipment, which, again, is not what I'm used to in this particular poker room.

This realization caused me to take stock again of our trip around the casino floor. Remarkably, these observations were typical of the casino denizens in general. Frankly, few people in the casino at all were the sorts of people that used to hang around the 'Shoe. No, these were the great washed masses who more usually frequent places I despise, such as New York-New York or the MGM Grand. What happened? Why are these people here? Was this just for opening night? Where are the dingy people? Maybe they took one look at the improved lighting and high-tailed it back to the El Cortez? I don't know what the deal is, but this is something I plan to pay attention to in future visits. Key question: What will be the demographic of the new Horseshoe? If I were a casino executive there, this question would keep me up nights.

Equally strange was the realization that I had been in the game for 15 minutes without having someone blow cigarette smoke in my face. Again, this was a personal Horseshoe first. I never saw a sign that said the poker room was non-smoking, but others have reported that it is. I only know that there was nobody smoking at my table, something that I truly appreciate. In fact, as a poker playing experience, the Horseshoe now rates ahead of the Palms on all fronts, about the only positive metric I can think of by which such a comparison could be true.

As you might expect, though, the washed masses couldn't play poker for shit. Two hours after a slow start, I managed to find myself up a rack. This is despite a drop of 10% to a max of $4 on a 2-4 game, which is usurious. I should point out, though, that I think this was the same drop the previous regime was pulling down before "the incident".

There was clearly some confusion among the staff, both new and old, but no more so than you'd expect. People weren't clear about when breaks occurred, the poker room cashier closed earlier than was prudent, chip runners took a long time, drink service was intermittent, not all dealers had all the card room rules down cold, etc.. To say that the staff was grace under pressure would be an overstatement, but I would say that they were doing a reasonable job of coping with situations as they came up. Bottom line, the poker room at the Horseshoe is still a fun place to play. Now that it's non-smoking, this is even more true than it was before.

At about 10:00, the band in the race book started playing, which leads me to wonder if this is the first time in the history of the English language anyone had written or uttered the line, "the band in the race book started playing." In case the reader is curious, a quick Google search turned up nothing. The band was covering 70s and 80s dance tunes, and was considerably less noxious than I first feared, mostly because they didn't seem to feel that they had a responsibility to shake the whole building and to make certain that folks in the steak house could hear them. As far as I was concerned, this was just as well, as I doubt that seismic retrofit was on the short list of items that was to be completed before the grand reopening.

It was late, and I needed to work on Friday, so cashed out a rack up and was out the door just after 11:00 PM.

Playing poker at the new 'Shoe was a surreal experience, and in that sense, it wasn't much different than many experiences I've had since moving to Las Vegas. As far as I can tell, surreality seems to be de rigueur here. I'm really glad the Horseshoe is open and that many folks are able to get back to work. I'm also glad to see a decent sized poker room open downtown. Some of the improvements have really paid off, and it looks to me that MTR/Harrah's at least won't be Stupak-esque in their cheapness when it comes to fixing stuff. Still, though, I have to say I'm a little disappointed. They had a chance to try to resurrect the days when the Horseshoe gave the customer a good gamble and they elected not to go that way. That's fine. That's their prerogative. I wish them luck. Other than the poker room, though, there's just nothing there for me to recommend the place. It's just another grind joint, and ultimately, I don't see a lot of reasons to think it will be anything more than that.

What will they do if the Golden Nugget poker room across the street starts to poach their poker business along with better food, better odds, a cleaner place, and a nicer atmosphere? What happens to the Horseshoe then? I don't know, but I'm betting it will be surreal.

Eplogue:
After I posted this report to the BARGE list, Tom Sims pointed out to me that while the Horseshoe had significantly reduced its full-pay video poker inventory, it still had some, including some of the triple play full-pay Double Bonus machines on which I've lost so much money. This is a very good thing, and it's worth noting that in just this way alone, it puts the Horseshoe a notch above several downtown casinos. Just wanted to set the record straight.